The Inadvertent Inheritors of the Moon and Stars: Accidental Presidents and the Vice Presidency

For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the vice presidency was little more than an afterthought. Occupants of the office were typically political hacks who wallowed in powerlessness. However, John Tyler’s ascendancy to Commander-in-Chief in 1841 changed everything. As the nation’s first accidental president, Tyler rejected almost every major legislative program advanced by the Whig-dominated Congress, which the late Harrison had intended to pass. Tyler’s precedent of ignoring his predecessor’s policies was followed by accidental presidents Millard Fillmore (1850-1853), Andrew Johnson (1865-1869), Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885), and Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909).
Although these “accidental presidents” executed different policies from those of their predecessors, this phenomenon has been largely ignored by vice presidential scholars. As I argue, this “going rogue” behavior is confined to the nineteenth century and the first decade of the 1900s. By the time Calvin Coolidge took the Oath of Office following the death of President Harding in 1923, the fear of vice presidents trailblazing their own path had dissipated. Unlike previous accidental presidents, Coolidge became Harding’s biggest champion and continued the Ohioan’s pro-business policies.
Coolidge’s shift from “going rogue” to one of emulation characterizes the administrations of Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Gerald Ford, three other vice presidents who unexpectedly assumed the presidency. As president, Truman often preoccupied himself by thinking about what FDR would have wanted or what Roosevelt would have done if he were still president.[ii] LBJ adopted a similar agenda to that of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy. In his autobiography, LBJ admitted, “I felt from the very first day in office that I had to carry on for President Kennedy… I never lost sight of the fact that I was the trustee and custodian of the Kennedy Administration.”[iii] Even Gerald Ford “followed closely Nixon’s policies with few exceptions.”[iv] While morbid, presidential deaths function as important reminders that the Office of the Vice President should not be disregarded. Although succession to the presidency in the event of death or resignation is arguably the most important aspect of the vice presidency, there is little extant literature addressing the variation between accidental presidents of the 1800s and the accidental presidents of the 1900s.
My thesis addresses this gap in presidential and vice presidential scholarship. In order to better understand the factors that compelled accidental presidents to adopt the rogue or emulator strategy, I focus on three variables: party instability, nomination practices, and institutional isolation. Generally, the first five vice presidents who unexpectedly became president presided during eras when their respective political parties were in turmoil. A party’s inability to reach a consensus over a hot political topic of the day engendered intra-party fighting and weakened party discipline. Without a clear party line to adhere, accidental presidents were free to craft their own ideologies and policies. Throughout my research, I use the D-W Nominate Scores Database to empirically measure party identification and polarization. Overall, the general trends from the D-W Nominate database indicate that party cohesion within the national parties during the nineteenth century Congresses were often in flux when compared to the twentieth century Congresses.
Furthermore, the political parties’ domination of the nomination conventions often led to the pairing of running mates who were from different ideological wings of the party and unfamiliar with each other. Indeed, the vast majority of nineteenth century presidents had relatively poor relationships with their vice presidents. This was largely the case, too, with the accidental presidents and their predecessors (Vice President Theodore Roosevelt reportedly once remarked, “[President] McKinley shows all the backbone of a chocolate éclair”). A negative relationship between the president and the vice president often led to the vice president’s exclusion from executive branch proceedings.
Finally, due to institutional constraints (i.e. access to the president, the vice president’s connection to the Senate), accidental presidents, during their tenures as vice presidents, often had little to no interaction with their predecessors. Naturally this made it difficult to ensure continuity following the death of a president. Nineteenth century vice presidents faced a number of institutional obstacles, such as the Presidential Cabinet, that separated them from their presidents. Simply put: going rogue may have been the only option for the accidental president because he did not have the ability to access the views of his predecessor nor learn his predecessor’s policy stances and beliefs.
The shift from going rogue to the emulation style of Coolidge or Truman is a consequence of greater party discipline, ideological cohesiveness, and institutional reforms that were brought to the vice presidency. Parties began providing their presidential candidates with greater agency over who would join them on the national ballots. This resulted in a far more cooperative and congenial relationship between presidents and vice presidents. Moreover, as the twentieth century progressed, political parties became far more organizationally coherent. Ideological cohesiveness and party lines were more clearly defined. The professionalization of parties decreased the probability of party members going rogue. Lastly, the twentieth century witnessed significant institutional reform to the vice presidency. Vice presidents experienced an increase in their workload and responsibilities, gradually becoming an integral component to the Office of the President. In sum, accidental presidents emphasize the true significance of the Office of the Vice President. To ensure a successful democratic transition, vice presidents must be ready should they be inadvertently propelled to the presidency. They must be prepared should the moon and stars fall on them.